Doily Diplomacy
by Lady Kes
Summary: Uncle Bilbo's house was full of stories. Sometimes the stories were words, but sometimes the stories were things. Elvish things. Hobbitish things. Even Dwarvish things. Frodo loved Uncle Bilbo's stories.
1. Chapter 1

Uncle Bilbo's house was _fascinating_. There were lots of things to see and touch and explore and Uncle Bilbo didn't mind if Frodo poked around into everything. Well, he did say that the Elvish dagger - an Elvish dagger! - was too sharp for young Hobbit hands, but other than that, Frodo could spend hours looking at things. It was like going to the Mathom House, except with less sneezing because of the dust. There was no dust in Uncle Bilbo's house.

Frodo hadn't been sure about living with Uncle Bilbo and at first he'd spent a lot of time exploring so he didn't have to talk to his new guardian, but eventually he'd decided he liked Uncle Bilbo and then he'd kept exploring because it was fun.

He always had time to explore. Of course he had meals with his uncle, and of course he played with the other young Hobbits and of course he learned his lessons, but exploring was the best way to spend a rainy day or a boring day or a day when Samwise had to help his Da with something. Uncle Bilbo liked to spend the afternoon reading or writing in his study, so Frodo tried to explore elsewhere in the smial. As long as he was quiet, Uncle Bilbo didn't mind Frodo exploring in the same room, but sometimes Uncle Bilbo talked to himself or to the air and it was weird. Frodo had bumped his head more than once when Uncle Bilbo had suddenly said something.

So Frodo explored elsewhere. Today he was in one of the back storerooms where all the extra linens were kept. He didn't expect to find anything interesting, but as Uncle Bilbo always said, the most interesting things turned up in the last place anyone would expect. This time, though, all he found was old sheets and a strange knitted thing. It wasn't a hat. It wasn't a tea cosy. It wasn't a pot holder. He examined it for several minutes and finally decided he was going to have to ask Uncle Bilbo about it. He padded back to the study with the strange object in his hand.

Uncle Bilbo was muttering, but he wasn't writing, so Frodo thought he could interrupt him.

"Uncle Bilbo," he said timidly, and Uncle Bilbo started.

"Bless me, Frodo, you startled me," he said, but not unkindly or harshly. "I was arguing with myself about how long - but that's no matter. What have you found now?"

Frodo held up the strange knitted thing. Uncle Bilbo looked at it with confusion before his face cleared.

"Ah, yes! That, my boy, is a _doily_."

Frodo examined the item again. It didn't look like any doily he'd ever seen, and he'd seen many doilies in various smials.

"Are you sure?" he asked doubtfully, but rather than scolding him for questioning his elders, Uncle Bilbo laughed.

"Yes," he said kindly. "I'm entirely sure, though I don't blame you for doubting me."

"It doesn't look like a doily. It looks like a - like a," Frodo trailed off. He wasn't sure what it _did_ look like, but it didn't look like a doily.

"Quite," Uncle Bilbo agreed. "And that is because it is a Dwarvish doily."

Frodo considered that, then frowned. He didn't know much about Dwarves and what he did know was entirely from Uncle Bilbo's stories, but Dwarves didn't seem like doily-havers.

"I didn't think Dwarves had doilies," he said, and Uncle Bilbo chuckled.

"Clever lad," he praised Frodo, and Frodo could feel himself puffing up a little at it. "You are entirely right. Dwarves don't usually have doilies, which makes this one extra special."

"So, if Dwarves don't have doilies, how do you have one?" he asked, because he was still very confused.

"Ah, well, that is a story that will require tea and tarts," Uncle Bilbo declared, and put his quill down. "Come along, Frodo, and bring the doily."

Frodo wasted no time in running for the kitchen with the doily. Any story that required tea and tarts would be a good one.

After they'd both had a tart or two and had sipped their tea, Uncle Bilbo set his cup down and picked up the doily. Frodo set his cup down too. He'd been doing his best to hold his teacup in a dignified, grown-up Hobbitish way, but it was slightly too big for his hand, so he was glad to be able to put it down.

"Now, the story of the doily," Uncle Bilbo began, looking at it with a far-away face. "You remember I told you I had a bit of an adventure some years back? The one -"

"With trolls and spiders and dragons!" Frodo finished excitedly, because he loved hearing about Uncle Bilbo's adventure.

"You do remember. Excellent," Uncle Bilbo said, and his eyes twinkled so Frodo knew that he was teasing.

"Well, that was quite a big adventure for a simple Hobbit, and it didn't always go very well for me," he started.

"Trolls!" Frodo interrupted, and Uncle Bilbo paused.

"Now, are you telling the story or am I telling the story?" he asked, but he wasn't angry. Frodo closed his mouth anyway, since he very much wanted to hear Uncle Bilbo tell the rest.

"Right, I was on an adventure, and it didn't always go well, but that's how adventures are sometimes, Frodo. You remember that if you ever need to go on an adventure." Frodo giggled at the idea that he'd ever go on an adventure.

"At the end of the adventure, I had a bit of a disagreement with the Dwarves I was traveling with," Uncle Bilbo continued. "The details aren't important, but it meant that I picked up my blanket and my sword and I moved somewhere else. I didn't think I'd ever see any of the Dwarves again and I was sad about it, because I quite liked some of them."

Frodo knew that some of the other Hobbits didn't really understand why Uncle Bilbo liked Dwarves, and really, he didn't quite understand either, but there were some things that only made sense to certain Hobbits. Everyone knew that. It was why Samwise's father could grow anything and Rosie's mother could make clothes that always fit and Pippin's father could be Thain of the entire Shire.

"Well, when I unpacked in the new place, I found this little thing," he said, holding up the doily. "It had been slipped into my bag by one of the Dwarves, probably Ori. Dwarves can be very sneaky, you know."

Frodo giggled again at the idea of a sneaky Dwarf. Sometimes Dwarves passed near or through the Shire and they were always very not sneaky. They had big stomping boots and they sang big stomping songs in big stomping voices.

"They can!" Uncle Bilbo repeated. "And when I found this, I knew that not all the Dwarves were angry with me, which made me feel very nice. Now, what we do when we have a disagreement with our friends and they try to fix it?"

Frodo thought for a minute, and then said, "We forgive them. After we make them apologize ham-some-ly."

Uncle Bilbo chuckled and nodded. "That's right. We forgive them. And it helps if they apologize handsomely, if they've done something to hurt us."

"Did the Dwarves apologize?" Frodo demanded, because that was important.

Uncle Bilbo looked sad for just a moment, more sad than Frodo had seen him look in months, but he shook his head and then he didn't look sad anymore.

"They did, quite handsomely," Uncle Bilbo said. "It didn't happen immediately, but we never hold that against our friends. The apology is the important part, not how long it takes to be offered. Remember that, Frodo."

Frodo nodded solemnly. He would try to remember that the next time someone took his hiding spot or ate the last biscuit or broke one of his toys and then apologized for it.

"So that is how I have a Dwarvish doily, as odd as it looks, Frodo. It was part of an apology, and so I have always kept it," Uncle Bilbo finished the story and Frodo considered it. Uncle Bilbo's stories didn't always have a lesson, which was very nice, but it felt like this one did. He would have to think about that.

Weeks passed, months even, and then Frodo did something very stupid. It was the kind of thing even a very young Hobbit would know better than to do, and he wasn't a very young Hobbit anymore. Uncle Bilbo was very unhappy with him for it, though he still didn't yell. Frodo might have preferred that he yelled. If he yelled, it would all be over and done. Instead Uncle Bilbo was just "very disappointed in him", and Frodo had to fix it.

He couldn't do it himself, though, so he talked to Samwise and Rosie and Pippin and between them all, they figured it out. They got flexible sticks from some of the shrubs around Hobbiton and then Rosie helped him bend and twist the sticks together. When it was done, Frodo placed his present on Uncle Bilbo's desk, then ran to his room to read until Uncle Bilbo found it.

In a few minutes, Uncle Bilbo knocked gently on the half-open door and then came in holding Frodo's present.

"What is this, Frodo?" he asked very gently, and Frodo looked at his book instead of his uncle.

"It's a doily, Uncle," he mumbled, hoping his uncle would understand. Uncle Bilbo didn't say anything for a little while, but Frodo dared to look up eventually. Uncle Bilbo was smiling!

"Frodo, my very dear boy, this may be the best doily anyone has ever given me," Uncle Bilbo said, and opened his arms. Frodo ran into them and hugged his Uncle close.

"Even better than the Dwarvish doily?" Frodo mumbled against his uncle's soft weskit, and felt rather than heard his uncle chuckle.

"I like them both equally. I think it's safe to say that doily diplomacy is a winning strategy," Uncle Bilbo said, and Frodo beamed up at his uncle.

He'd remember that, too, even though Uncle Bilbo hadn't said to.


	2. Chapter 2

He was tired. So tired, and yet he couldn't sleep the night through. It wasn't the elves' fault. They'd been kindness and solicitousness itself. They'd realized he wasn't sleeping well even though he'd tried not to show it. They'd not said anything directly, of course. They wouldn't. Instead they'd quietly begun providing more comfortable bedding, soothing music, various herbs and tisanes, and eventually even some stronger draughts from locked rooms. None of it helped. He was so tired, and yet when he slept, he was back in the fires, back where he struggled with Gollum and himself and the Ring. His missing finger itched and burned as if it were in the fires as well, which, perhaps, it was.

So he couldn't sleep. He read, and he walked, and he thought, but that was dangerous too. He remembered things when he thought, things he didn't particularly want to remember, but couldn't forget. Boromir, influenced by the Ring. The eye. The wraiths. Shelob. Dol Guldur. Gollum's triumphant face just before he disappeared into the lava.

Merry and Pippin and Sam saw things too, he knew, and would never be the carefree Hobbits they once were. They sometimes joined him on his nightly walks, especially Sam, but he was more often alone in this as in so many other things.

He was alone tonight. All his friends were asleep. All of Rivendell was asleep. Quietly, so that he did not disturb anyone, he walked to a balcony that allowed him to see the stars and moon and to hear the waterfalls. There he sat, breathing deeply and wondering whether he would ever be able to forget the Ring and what it had been, what it had done.

A slow, careful, quiet tapping became gradually louder and he smiled at his Uncle's careful, aged steps. Some things still made him smile, and he was glad of that. He got up from his bench to help Bilbo sit down and then sat down again himself.

"Thank you, my boy," Bilbo said in his creaky, ancient voice. There were some that had difficulty understanding Bilbo in recent days, but Frodo never had. Sometimes Bilbo's mind wandered, and sometimes his voice wandered too, but Frodo still understood him. Perhaps he even understood Bilbo better now.

"You are troubled," Bilbo said, and Frodo nodded, but didn't speak. He thought Bilbo had something else to say, and Frodo would let him say it. Instead, though, Bilbo pulled out a knitted item and carefully handed it to Frodo with his shaky, gnarled hands.

"Do you remember this?" Bilbo said, and Frodo turned it over in his own, nine-fingered hands.

"This is your Dwarvish doily," Frodo replied slowly.

"Indeed, my boy, indeed," his uncle replied proudly, as proudly as he ever was when he thought Frodo had been clever. "And do you remember the story behind it?"

"It was an apology. You got it on your adventure with the Dwarves. I found it in a storeroom and asked you about it. I didn't believe you when you said Dwarves made doilies. Having met Gimli and all the other Dwarves at the Council, I still don't." Frodo actually smiled at the recollection of the story and the Dwarves. No, Dwarves weren't the type to have doilies.

Bilbo's answering chuckle was rusty. "And in that I do not blame you, Frodo. In many things I do not blame you, for many things have happened that you could not have foreseen. None of us could have foreseen them."

His voice trailed off and he fell silent, staring off into the distance. Frodo allowed him to be silent for some time, but eventually, he gently tapped his uncle's hand.

"Uncle Bilbo," he said gently and patiently. "Why have you brought me this now?"

Bilbo started, as if he had forgotten that Frodo was there, and it was likely that he had. Wherever he had gone and whomever he had seen there, he had returned with a slight smile on his face. The smile disappeared, though, when he looked at the doily.

"It's an apology, Frodo my lad. You once made me a doily out of branches to apologize, do you remember?"

Frodo nodded, feeling his ears turn slightly red. That incident had not been his best moment as a child, though Bilbo had been kindness itself, all things considered.

"And now … now I must apologize. For it is my fault the Ring came to you. My fault you have suffered and seen so much that hurts you and does not allow you to sleep. And so I will give you my doily, and hope you will accept it." Bilbo's voice was full of sorrow. It wasn't the first time he had apologized for the actions of the Ring, and for his own actions in relation to the Ring. Frodo did not hold him at fault, though. He knew full well what the Ring could do and the power it could exert.

"I will accept it, Uncle Bilbo, and I forgive you," he said seriously. Bilbo nodded, though they both knew that the doily alone would not allow Frodo to sleep, nor allow Bilbo to forget his part in all of this. Still, as a much younger Bilbo had said to a much younger Frodo, it was the apology that was the important part.

"Excellent," Bilbo said, determinedly cheerful now. "Now, shall we make a raid on the kitchens? I believe I know where they are keeping the tarts this week."

Frodo chuckled, then tucked the doily into his pocket and stood to help his Uncle to his feet. Yes, some things could still make him smile. And doily diplomacy was still a winning strategy.


End file.
